Password page

What visitors see while the store is locked. It shows your logo, a message, and a field for the storefront password.

Open it from the template dropdown in the theme editor.

Locking and unlocking the store

The lock itself is a store setting, not a theme one. Turn it on and off under Online Store → Preferences → Password protection in the admin, where you also set the password and the message shown on the page.

Development stores are locked by default. A paid store is unlocked unless you lock it deliberately.

The message

Password protection in the admin has a message field, and whatever you write there appears on this page.

Use it. The default is generic, and this page is often the first thing an early customer or a supplier sees. Say what the store sells and when it opens.

Launch date

Launch date shows a countdown to the moment you open. Enter it in YYYY-MM-DD form.

Only set a date you intend to keep. A countdown that reaches zero on a store still showing a password page is worse than no countdown.

Newsletter signup

The password page carries a signup form, so visitors who arrive early can be told when you open. Addresses collected here land in your Shopify customer list alongside every other subscriber, ready for the launch email.

This is the main reason to give the page real attention: for a pre-launch store, it is the only page there is.

Previewing it

Once the store is unlocked the page is no longer reachable, but the theme editor still lets you open the template and work on it — worth doing before you lock the store rather than after.

Password page

Section settings

Setting	Type	Default	Notes
Launch date	Text	2026-12-31	Format: YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. 2026-06-01)